Nanny's wisdom has paid off before

This was published 8 years ago

Nanny's wisdom has paid off before

Without the ''nanny'' state we would be in serious trouble. More people would die on the roads or smoke themselves to an early grave; more would be maimed by defective consumer goods, and conned by false and misleading advertising; and more toddlers would drown in backyard swimming pools.

There would be more gun deaths from suicide and murder, and alcohol would wreak even more havoc if publicans were not subject to some controls.

<em>Illustration: Simon Bosch</em>

Illustration: Simon Bosch


In the frenzied debate over poker machine reforms, Tony Abbott has invoked the spectre of the ''nanny'' state as a reason to oppose the government's proposed legislation.


But poker machines are just another harmful product - like a car without seatbelts - from which consumers deserve some protection.

Whenever a politician talks about the ''nanny'' state, or ''personal responsibility'' as a reason to desist from taking protective action, you have to ask whose interests are being served. James Packer, Channel Nine, Woolworths (the country's biggest poker machine operator) and the powerful registered clubs do not have the interests of problem gamblers at heart. Their word on the subject should not be trusted. The industry is defending its right to milk $12 billion a year from gamblers, much of it derived from people with pathological addictions.

The tens of thousands of families whose lives have been ruined by poker machines are too scattered, too ashamed, and too poor to fight the massive forces arrayed against them. Many live in the most disadvantaged suburbs where the clubs, shamefully, make their biggest profits.

An occasional brave and eloquent voice tells it like it is but is soon drowned by the multimillion-dollar advertising blitzes that claim the reforms are un-Australian or ''Won't Work, Will Hurt'', and by the disinformation spread through public rallies and marginal seat campaigns.

Personal responsibility was what car drivers were supposed to exercise behind the wheels of inherently dangerous vehicles in the days before the consumer champion Ralph Nader took on the Detroit car industry. Nader's revelations prompted famously anti-nanny state Americans to pass a law in 1966 that shifted greater responsibility for safety from driver to manufacturer.

We got seatbelts, stronger windscreens, and fewer sharp and pointy bits in the interior and on the exterior. Drivers also faced new drink-driving rules and (in Australia) compulsory seatbelt laws.

Poker machines in Australia are dangerous products, inherently different from other gambling products like horse racing. High intensity machines allow bets of up to $10 a spin, or $10,000 at any one time, and gamblers can lose $1200 an hour. Every three seconds they can bet. This is not a benign product, like a hamburger, a comparison invoked by the head of Woolworths' gambling subsidiary.

Just as most people are vigilant with children around swimming pools, so most people manage to leave poker machines with their shirts on. But 15 per cent of regular pokie players are problem gamblers, and a further 15 per cent are at risk, according to the Productivity Commission.

When a product hurts such a significant proportion of users, it is imprecise to talk of problem gamblers. It's time to talk of problem machines. It's not enough to tell the victims to exercise more personal responsibility or to seek counselling after the problem becomes entrenched. The product must be made safer or the rules around its use changed.

The proposed pokie reforms will not end fun, community spirit, children's sport, and life as we know it. Nor will they force gamblers to register for a licence. Venues will have the option to make machines low intensity, with a maximum bet of $1 per push of the button, and an average hourly loss of $120; eight out of 10 gamblers would probably be happy to use low-intensity machines, based on Productivity Commission research. Users of the low-intensity machines would be absolved from mandatory pre-commitments.

Only those playing high intensity machines would have to nominate in advance an amount they would be prepared to lose, and play using a personal device like a USB stick or smart card. Once they had reached their limit, they would be stopped from gambling on any machine until the period they had nominated expired.

These are not unreasonable proposals but a way to make a product safer, like removing the pointy bits in the interior of a car, or requiring a driver to wear a seat belt. People using the low-intensity machines will be free to lose $120 an hour. Is that not enough? Not enough for the industry. Those intending to play the high-intensity machines retain some choice about acceptable losses at a time when they are still capable of exercising responsibility.

The industry says the reforms won't help problem gamblers, yet predicts dire financial consequences for the clubs. The clubs support voluntary pre-commitment knowing trials show it won't be taken up, just as Americans have not voluntarily taken to wearing seatbelts.

Nanny state intervention did not end murder, drink driving or child drownings but did reduce death rates and the level of harm.

This could be the country's one chance to reduce the misery inflicted by a harmful, poorly regulated product. It's a case for the nanny state.

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